James Landrith discusses life as a male survivor and recounts his experience of rape at the hands of a woman.
As a vocal male survivor, when I’m not talking about sexual violence in writing or before audiences, I’m reading about it in many contexts and sources. A great deal of what I see on a daily basis is directed at men with the assumption that we know nothing about sexual violence or have no experiences that parallel those of female survivors.
Those making such arguments are often NOT sexual violence survivors themselves. Encountering such memes can be quite painful when you are a rape survivor yourself. The problem is not that female survivors receive the majority of the attention when sexual violence is discussed. The problem is that when sexual violence is discussed with regard to male survivors, there is often resistance, condescension, and outright mockery by people who quite often have not experienced such violence themselves. For those who have lived through abuse at the hands of women, that can be doubly wounding.
I’ve lived through sexual violence. I have my own story and my own experiences. I have my own triggers and my own issues. I don’t need to be educated. I don’t need to be taught what to do or not do. I don’t need any proven statistical bias to legitimize my life or my experiences. I lived it.
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Background
Approximately twenty years ago I met a friend at a club in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He came with a female friend. During the night, he disappeared leaving his friend by herself and without a ride. As she was pregnant and without a ride, I agreed to take her home when I left. She had not been out in a while and wanted to stay until the club closed that night. While she was not drinking, she bought me a few thank you drinks for agreeing to drive her home.
After a few drinks, I became very tired and disoriented. I never drank until I got drunk, especially when driving and off base. I didn’t like the feeling and it wasn’t secure off base. I just figured I was tired and had too much without realizing it. There was a motel next to the club. She suggested we get a room and sleep it off, then I could drive her home in the morning. I agreed as I was rapidly losing the ability to think or see straight. She got us a room with double beds and we split the cost.
I vaguely remember laying down with my clothes still on. I probably took off my shirt per the norm, but I left my pants on. I did not feel comfortable taking my pants off around this strange woman. She warned me that she did not want to have sex and I remember saying that I was seeing someone and was not at all interested in that either. I laid down on my side of the room and was out almost immediately.
At some point in the night, I awoke to find her on top of me. I said something I cannot remember and she coaxed me back to sleep. I doubt very much that she could even understand what I was saying, given how disoriented I felt at that time.
The next morning, after the sun had risen, I woke again feeling confused and unsure of where I was or what had transpired since getting off work on Friday afternoon. My pants were nowhere to be seen, my underwear also missing and my penis was erect. I realized that she was on top of me, grinding and moaning. I didn’t know what to think. I wasn’t fucking her. I didn’t want to fuck her. Who was she again? I moved as my legs were stiff and sore from being in the same position for hours with her on top of me.
She darted her eyes at me and told me not to move. I was ordered “don’t be forceful.” She then asked if I was trying to rape her when I could not remain perfectly still and again told me not to move. In addition, I was told that I could hurt the baby if I tried to stop it. After she finally finished, I was still expected to drive her home.
In short, I was drugged, raped, threatened and had a baby used against me as a human shield. To say that experience left me messed up would be an understatement.
Put yourself in my shoes for a minute. I was under 21, drinking illegally in a club, while on active duty with a local, pregnant civilian. Why didn’t I report it? Read this paragraph again and think about it harder if it eludes your grasp.
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The Reaction
How did I react? I buried it deep and pretended it didn’t happen, which is a common reaction for male survivors. That did not mean that it had no effect on me. I simply pretended it didn’t happen. I called it a bad night and said she was a little twisted.
As one therapist would later tell me, denial of trauma does not mean it isn’t affecting you. I believe she said that if unacknowledged, the effects would “come out sideways” and in a manner that may not be easily identifiable. For me, that was a sudden and ridiculous promiscuity that did not exist before the rape. I began to act out sexually by sleeping with any woman who offered. I turned down no one, to include several much older, married women. I did not seek out sex, I simply said yes every time.
To say that I was reckless then would be accurate. I was risking exposure to disease and potential violence from angry husbands and boyfriends. I did this for about three years before getting married and further stuffing the memories down further. Further, I lost nearly all trust in women – especially aggressive and loud women.
Nearly twenty years later, I decided to confront it. The time had come to do something about it. I sought out assistance and began to see a therapist. I spent a lot of time on me, thinking, analyzing and progressing. It was painful, but necessary work. I’m not done with it. I don’t know that I’ll ever be truly done.
While in therapy, it was as if the bandage had been ripped off suddenly and the wounds were newly raw. I had panic attacks, crying fits, sudden anger and loss of time. I felt exposed all the time, everywhere.
I had trouble being alone with a woman in a confined space like an office or elevator. Some days, I didn’t even want to stand next to a woman in line for a cup of coffee. Remember the controversy in the feminist blogosphere over strange men talking to women in an elevator? Reverse the sexes and I lived it. For me, the issue wasn’t hypothetical or used to demonstrate which gender has it worse with regard to potential sexual violence. It was based on an actual trauma response. The back and forth over why men should expect to be viewed as rapists by women in elevators took on a whole new level of offensive when viewed through the lens of my own experience.
I felt guilty all the time. I still feel guilty quite often. I feel guilty because I don’t trust women I don’t know. I feel guilty because I sometimes view women, particularly loud and aggressive white women, as potential threats to my well-being and mental health. I feel guilty because for a long time, I couldn’t look at a pregnant woman without seeing that sick woman from so many years ago.
I still struggle with some of these issues today, but not as often and not always in such intensity as before. Presently, I have returned to my prior human resources career. This field is dominated by women and has proved a big test for me.
The biggest test is sometimes just getting through the day without losing it. Some days I pass without issue, on other days I just have to give myself a hall pass so I can get on with my life.
—Photo Unlikely Ghost/Flickr
About James A. Landrith
Thank you for sharing your experience. We need people of both sexes to speak out more about rape.
Maybe I’m the only one, but I have been raped by both male and female…female very much as described in article, male very much as described in article. I didn’t like it, but it was just easier to let it go than pursue any actions. I wasn’t actually hurt, so I marked it off as no big deal and an experience in life.
Kudos for telling your story.
Of *course* sex without consent is rape – whether through weapons, drugs, blackmail, abuse of authority, or youth. The implied threat to accuse James of rape is coercion enough. The question here isn’t whether this is rape or not – it’s how we educate everyone to avoid raping anyone, and to seek help if they have urges in that drection.
Thanks Maria. I hope that it helps others who are still in denial about rape vs. “rape rape”.
James: That sounds completely horrible and frightening. It’s no wonder you’ve been traumatised.
This is heartbreaking. I am sorry you had to go through this.
Thanks Vas. I know you’ve got your scars too and I appreciate your support.
I’m with you right up to the point where you talk about a “whole new level of offensive” in the controversy about women being afraid of men in elevators, because of concern that they might be raped. You say you yourself had trouble being alone in an elevator with women, and that you felt discomfort in other situations around strange women. Why then can’t you understand why some women might feel this way around men? When I heard your story, I immediately understood why you’d feel uneasy, and if I had made you feel uneasy simply because I’m female, I would never take offense at that or take it personally. But strangely, you would find it offensive when women have that same fear? Why? Isn’t empathy your first response, given your experience? Like: yeah, I know what it might feel like to be uncomfortable in an elevator with a stranger, and that it’s not anything directed personally at the stranger. Why is it somehow more offensive for women to assume that a man could have the potential to be a rapist, then it is for you to assume that a woman has that potential? I don’t think either case is offensive–it’s just that some people have good reason to struggle with trust.
Those are really good questions Suzy and I’m glad you took the time to ask them, rather than attribute feelings, words and thoughts to me that I didn’t say, don’t feel and didn’t think. Oh wait. You did the opposite.
Anyway. I don’t have a problem with a woman being concerned about a possible man being a rapist. I have a problem with certain women who used that fear to make the case that ALL MEN SHOULD BE FEARED OMG ALL THE TIME BECAUSE MEN ARE RAPISTS and any man who is not sheepish and submissive or doesn’t like being treated like a rapist is clearly just looking for an opportunity and hates women. Some of the discussions around that topic were far less simple then you conveyed in your comments above. If you are going to speak for that entire discussion then you get to own that bit of it too.
Do you see the difference? Or do you even care about it? It seems you came here with an agenda and you revealed it.
CJ,
No, she did not simply ask polite questions. She accused me, in the form of a thinly veiled question, of not having empathy for female rape survivors. Then you, despite the question being answered by multiple commenters, go on to repeat the same baseless allegation re: empathy.
That is a big, giant, crazy manipulation of a lie.
I did not mock her ANYWHERE in my response. You don’t like my response because you clearly agree with Suzy, which is coloring your interpretation of my response to her. That’s fine and that’s your right, but please don’t pretend that Suzy was super sweet and nice and did not make ugly accusations in the form of questions. That much was clear to other commenters as well. Had Suzy asked real questions, rather than accusing me of lacking empathy, she would have found a different response waiting for her.
Please learn the difference between mockery and anger at being accused of lacking empathy for female rape survivors. You have NO idea of how many female rape survivors I know and have supported over the years. Neither you, nor Suzy, get to attempt to paint me as lacking in empathy without getting called out for it. Suzy clearly attempted to call me out on her mistaken perception and got it incredibly wrong. Yet, you ignore that and paint me as a victimizer and Suzy as my victim.
Think about that for a second. You came on an article about a man being raped by a woman. A woman came on here and accused me of lacking empathy for female rape survivors. Think about the inappropriateness of that posting she made in the context of the space and whether you’d have supported a male accusing a female of lacking empathy toward male survivors in a space reserved for their issues.
You have admitted that you are ignorant with regard to the mentioned controversy, yet still feel compelled to assign a lack of empathy to me based on something which you don’t remember or know about. Rather than asking about the controversy, you simply decide to support a person who made baseless accusations in the form of thinly veiled questions. Why would someone do such a thing, if they were truly interested in understanding, rather than chastising or silencing?
I responded and defended myself from a baseless and cruel allegation made by a stranger. Then you come in and support that allegation and chastise me for not being submissive in my response. As the kids say nowadays, you need to check your privilege here.
As I stated plainly in my response – as have SEVERAL OTHER COMMENTERS – the issue is not with female rape survivors experiencing PTSD or fear in an elevator with a lone male. The problem was with the ugly meme that Because Some Men Are Rapists, All Men Deserve To Be Treated Like Rapists, Even If They Are Survivors Too. This has been explained REPEATEDLY since then.
Several female survivors have also posted here in disagreement with Suzy. You and Suzy can paint me as lacking empathy if you like, but that cannot and will not make it so.
In all honesty I don’t think the comment needs or needed to be clarified. Even if you hadn’t been party to those other blogging discussions, and i wasn’t, the meaning of them was implied.
“Remember the controversy in the feminist blogosphere over strange men talking to women in an elevator? Reverse the sexes and I lived it. For me, the issue wasn’t hypothetical or used to demonstrate which gender has it worse with regard to potential sexual violence. It was based on an actual trauma response. The back and forth over why men should expect to be viewed as rapists by women in elevators took on a whole new level of offensive when viewed through the lens of my own experience.”
From this, Suzy seemed to get that James wasn’t sympathetic to women. Do you see that anywhere in this segment? I certainly don’t. He even specifies that the issue ISN’T about which gender has it worse. He is talking about his experience, as a man, being assumed as a rapist when he was in fact the rape victim. This neither mentions a hierarchy of victims nor invalidates women.
So when a person comes in and reads that, puts 2 and 2 together and gets 5; one can only assume they have come into the discussion with a less than open mind. Not necessarily with intention – just slightly morphed by their experiences and knowledge.
Show me a link where a female rape survivor is challenged and criticized this strongly.
He has every right to be angry at you both.
James,
I want to clarify something. I did not accuse you of “lacking empathy”. In fact, when I said this: “Isn’t empathy your first response, given your experience?” I was assuming that you DO have such empathy, and indeed that it is probably your first response. Precisely because you DO have it, you can probably understand why women might have a generalized fear of men in certain situations. That is my point. I don’t want to argue about the other things you said–that’s fine, water under the bridge.
Thank you for the clarification Suzy. Perhaps it will be interesting to note that MANY people, including several female survivors, took your words to mean what I took them to mean. Also, my empathy is for sexual violence survivors regardless of gender. I’ve served as a secondary to many people for nearly 20 years, including several close female friends. My empathy is for real people, not the hypothetical men and women described online by certain idealogues on the internet (what I was speaking to – and most readers understand) who seized upon elevator-gate to demonize all men and promote a concept that was NOT rooted in reality.
My compassion and empathy for survivors of sexual trauma is something that cannot be expressed adequately in words, nor would I want to try. I’ve cried with more people than I can remember. I’ve walked on more eggshells than you’ve probably ever seen. I’ve been angry at many people I’ve never met for hurting people I love. That is real empathy.
The elevator-gate controversy was not about empathy, but sexism disguised as “concern.” We are not even talking about the same thing.
Empathy for real people with real fears? Yes. I’ve never stated otherwise and anyone making such a claim is seriously incorrect or just plain concern trolling. Empathy for hypothetical people who only exist in arguments on the internet? Please. There are real people with real fears and real traumas who deserve real empathy.
“The elevator-gate controversy was not about empathy, but sexism disguised as “concern.” We are not even talking about the same thing.”
James I’m not sure if you are aware that there is a significant twist in the elevator-gate controversy.
It turns out that the main protagonist has an unusual disability – (Rebecca “Skepchick” Watson) is disabled and has “Prosopagnosia” – a cognitive impairment which means she is unable to recognise or recall faces.
So she was not creeped out by the guy – she was creeped out because she could not tell if it was a guy she knew or not!
It’s funny how she changes the story too – when she links the event to 4.00 in the morning – with her having been speaking some 12 hours earlier. One wonders how it is possible to leap across so many hours and be so certain that the supposing offending person was even present during the conference session and heard the speakers – and in particular Her Comments. …. and then everyone has to consider if a person in an elevator is a foreigner, in an unfamiliar hotel etc etc etc.
And she is a supposed sceptic – valuing evidence over inference!
It did find it fascinating to find some hidden grains hidden in the pepper – and for me it added a whole new level of offensive on top – using Disability as a tool to promote sexist fanaticism!
Wonders will never cease!
@ CJ Fields – I have to say that I have been watching your unfolding analysis and it is extremely flawed.
It is interesting to see just how “Comments” can be added to threads in particular places and actually make it hard for readers to see the Wood For The Forest – and how criticisms can be made to appear more valid than they actually are. The added comments disrupt time lines and communications flows. It is a known limitation of the format – but that limitation is also open to manipulation as well. The trials and tribulations of text based none sequential net communication.
You have stated that you are/were personally unaware of references within the piece and also indicated that in particular one other person was equally unaware. I can’t agree with you!
They said ” I’m with you right up to the point where you talk about a “whole new level of offensive” in the controversy about women being afraid of men in elevators, because of concern that they might be raped. ”
That construction with “Because” does indicate that they grasped the situation and events. If the person did not understand the references and events they would not have been able to build that language construct – they would not have been able to “re-frame” what James Wrote to have that meaning.
I did note quite clearly that when James First responded he did pick up on matters – and how he had quite literally had words put in his mouth – had ideas and feelings attributed to him which were not there – and they had all been done under the guise of questions.
There is that well known Rhetorical device of presenting a construct and then asking what becomes a rhetorical question in relation to that construct. It is not the same as asking a genuine question – it is a false question and designed to control the person the question is addressed to.
As you said – you did not grasp the whole set of issues, events and implications around “The back and forth over why men should expect to be viewed as rapists by women in elevators took on a whole new level of offensive when viewed through the lens of my own experience.”
If you are not aware of the issues, as you have clearly said, why are you so determined to de-construct what James has said?
Beyond that – if you are, as you state, unaware of central meanings, how can you perform a deconstruction of one person’s knowledge, state that another person “Did Not” have knowledge – given that you can’t place what was said in relevant context – and then keep on with repeated deconstruction and pseudo construction?
I found this construction very odd “But strangely, you would find it offensive when women have that same fear? Why?” – supposedly rhetorical question which is false – as it puts words and ideas supposedly in James mouth and head – and of course anyone reading also has such ideas and words supposedly attributed to James – and then there the “Why?” arrives.
That “Why?” is a known modifier as it turns a false rhetorical question into a supposed reality – nice trick – except where people are aware of it and don’t see it as a set of questions, but the rhetorical device it is and also how it misleads.
AS James said – “Those are really good questions Suzy and I’m glad you took the time to ask them, rather than attribute feelings, words and thoughts to me that I didn’t say, don’t feel and didn’t think. Oh wait. You did the opposite.”.
I was quite aware that James had spotted the devices being used – and how they did in fact attempt to attribute to him Ideas, views and feelings that he had not expressed. Maybe you missed that, as you have stated you were not aware of core information that would be needed to grasp how the Rhetorical devices were playing out.
I also have to look at the way the whole thread plays out – including time line analysis – as in who said what and when. I do find it interesting that your posts appear so selective and targeted, as if you have not read other posts – some which actually explain the whole issue and place matters in context.
Again – the format of none sequential text communication via the net has it’s limits, and when you mix that with people not knowing the subject and not reading whole threads and picking up information in what is real time, it does lead to multiple perceptual errors and misunderstandings – The trials and tribulations of text based none sequential net communication, indeed.
picking gnat-s**t out of pepper – I will pick out one thing from the pepper!
You claim that you did not/do not understand the reference to “The back and forth over why men should expect to be viewed as rapists by women in elevators took on a whole new level of offensive when viewed through the lens of my own experience.”.
When do you intend to ask what it refers to and clarify matters for yourself?
You have been apparently attempting to clarify a great deal for other people, but that piece in the pepper still needs to be picked out. So perhaps you will clarify and improve the pepper?
Regardless of whether Suzy was ignorant, malicious or otherwise intended the insinuation that he was invalidating female survivors was offensive. Don’t mistake my understanding that it might not have been purposeful as supportive. I think James has every right to be offended. If I had been brave enough to write my story and people accused me of invalidating fellow survivors through admitting I share a fear..well, I would be royally hacked off too.
To be honest, if all people can find to complain/argue about is the semantics of a sentence that has been explained to death by commenters and James himself; well, then I think he is doing damn well. It would be nice if people could be more appreciative of that but there will always be some friction when survivors choose to speak out.
I agree Tara! I am bemused as to why some are looking for small objects in the pepper when the whole thread is peppered with information! P^/
“If I had been brave enough to write my story and people accused me of invalidating fellow survivors through admitting I share a fear..well, I would be royally hacked off too.”
You may be hacked off – some would be standing by with rifles and buckshot to pepper offenders backsides with a lot more! You’re not alone – and there is a guard on standby!
Thank you Tara. I greatly appreciate your support, as always.
I think you have entirely misread him.
“Remember the controversy in the feminist blogosphere over strange men talking to women in an elevator?”
He is asking us, as readers, to cast out minds back to the controversy than occurred over men speaking to women. He isn’t forming an opinion on that issue at all – that is something you have discerned yourself. He only regales the point to help us to understand that he feels as women have said they do about strangers in elevators.
I can only imagine when reading this post, Suzy was coming in from the place of what men/women have said in the past so she didn’t really _read_ what she was reading; only the echoes of past opinions. It’s not somethign that can always be helped; particularly over subjects that are highly emotive.
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I truly do not understand this necessity people seem to have of separating out the genders. This isn’t about them and us, male vs female. It isn’t about who suffers the worst. It is about a collective pain and shared experience of heinous violence. There should be a goodwomen counterpart to this project. The lack of such a project only highlights the rose-tinted view we have of women and their capabilities — (well, aside from when women are being accused of being bunny boilers or malicious creatures who lie about rape for money…aside from then)
You are equating all women with a PTSD survivor?
If a woman has had a terrible experience which has given her PTSD I can see she might have a problem with men in lifts… or women in lifts… or anything I suppose… any ORDINARY life experience for someone else might be a problem. But where does the idea come from that all perfectly healthy women should behave as if they have suffered such a disability?
I’m not sure where you got the impression anyone here thought that.
Tara – it is a “Trope”(That word has to be banned along with conflate) that has been rolled out repeatedly across many threads.
I have extensive experience in dealing with both PTSD and Sexual assault survivors with PTSD. It has been extremely UNhelpful when some have put forward the view that all men are to treat all women as if those women have been raped and now have PTSD. It is such an extreme view, and also grossly disrespectful to those with PTSD ( From any Trauma ) and also to those who are dealing with any form of sexual assault who are not women. It has been manifestly anti-equality and little to do with feminism.
I have also had to point out, as David has here, that treating a person as disabled when they are not is actually Grossly Disrespectful to people with Disabilities. I can say that is the case from three positions – as an equality advocate – disability rights advocate – and from the position of being a Professional 24/7 365 days of the year cripple in my own right! P^)
If you follow the extreme views expressed by some just around elevators, the only logical solution is to demolish Manhattan and create a single story metropolis. That of course would need to be served by some form of lateral transport system, and the issue stops being about vertical transport and becomes lateral. What some fail to grasp is that there is a need for better support, diagnosis and treatment for all – but the whole issue gets trapped in a mindset of a box with buttons that some demand ownership of and only they may press the buttons. They have been unhappy when their toy box has been removed.P^)
Some have attempted to pervert “The Social Model Of Disability” to fit a very few people – and some have been quite unhappy when their personal perversions have been less than welcome and rebutted.
Predictably – when people with extreme views have been asked to justify them…… well the responses are still awaited.
Some see GMP as a venue for only one equality issue to be discussed or addressed. This Crippled, Queer, Racially Diverse Equality Advocate and Activist takes second place to no one – and no one has lesser rights either! P^)
I’m aware of it existing as an opinion but none of us here have shared that view. Hence my confusion
Tara – there was not just Trope but Sub-Trope to the Elevator Trope.
I agree with James “The back and forth over why men should expect to be viewed as rapists by women in elevators took on a whole new level of offensive when viewed through the lens of my own experience.”
Some attempted to argue, and even still do, that as it’s possible for someone who has developed sexual assault related PTSD to be exposed to re-experiencing that was linked to a lone male in an elevator and a women. Some have gone so far as to claim through the Rape Culture Trope/meme that this means all men have to accept that all women can and even will view them as rapists – and all men are obliged to consider all women as having been raped, having Sexual Assault related PTSD and disabled by it – and so all men are to view and treat all women that way – ie all women are to be viewed as disabled through neurodiversity and subject to PTSD. Supposed failure to accept this as fact and act accordingly makes one a bad man and subject to correction and the whim of those holding such views.
The argument has been presented here at GMP a number of times in different forms – so you will have to bear with those of us who raise it when the Tropes and Sub-tropes are at risk of being played.
It’s also interesting that direct challenge to the meme is met with silence. P^)
It’s fascinating to see how some world views are formed and just how fixed they have become. As I’m not in the US, its all turning into a fascinating psychology field trip. P^)
I’m wondering about looking for a University that wants to address Internet Anthropology!
Hi, just curious, may I asked what your disability may be?
Off topic, I also just came here to say many of you have such eloquent writing styles. I could learn a thing a two.
To the writer of this article, I’m sorry you had to experience such a thing. It’s scary, because I feel the same way about men, I can’t seem to trust anyone who tries to get too close to me.
Honestly, I’m not sure what you’re talking about–apparently there’s some deeper controversy about this elevator issue that I’m not aware of. I was responding mainly to this: “The back and forth over why men should expect to be viewed as rapists by women in elevators took on a whole new level of offensive when viewed through the lens of my own experience.” I don’t understand what was offensive here. If you’re not offended by the idea that many women would be uneasy about being in an elevator with a strange man, given their experiences, then it would seem we agree, but I don’t understand what was being called offensive. Sure, I know very well that women are capable of sexually assaulting men. My husband had it happen to him, which is why I clicked on the link to read this article in the first place. However, I don’t think he’s concerned that some women might find him, as a strange man, potentially threatening based on their past experiences and fears. Am I missing something here?
The controversy isn’t in the simplicity of a man or a woman may feel uncomfortable around the opposite sex. It comes from “feminists” taking the tone to imply that all women should be wary of ALL lone men in elevators etc without thought for non abusive men, abusive women or victimised men. Which is why James points out that he as a _man_ felt wary too. It isn’t a women’s only issue.
It was interesting to come back here (Andrew Sullivan’s blog linked to this story again, because of another more recent one by the same author) and read a bunch of replies that I never saw before. Maybe I can clarify a few things. My husband was raped by a woman when he was in college and had come home drunk from a party. I’ve been sexually assaulted more than once (as a child, and then later as an adult). So I have a pretty clear grasp of the idea that anyone can be sexually assaulted, and anyone can perpetrate an assault, and we shouldn’t try to place responsibility for this, even indirectly, on people who are assaulted.
I was puzzled by the comment about “a whole new level of offensive”, since I didn’t (and still don’t) see what was offensive about the idea that women might be wary of men in an elevator, or other situations where they can’t easily get away. There is nothing inherently offensive to men about pointing this out, any more than there’s anything offensive about the author of this piece being wary of women who are “loud” or “aggressive”, given his experience with a trauma. We’re all working out our own issues, so I’m not going to criticize the author for responding to me as he did. Whatever. However, now that I’ve seen links to a few of his other essays, I believe my initial questions do address a legitimate issue. In general, his position seems to be that it is not right for women to have a knee-jerk assumption that men, in general, are a potential threat. The reason for this is that it might be damaging in some way to men who are the target of those fears, and who themselves might have been victimized or are otherwise innocent. If this is not true, please correct me–I don’t want to mischaracterize anyone’s position.
My own view is that it’s perfectly okay for women (or men, in similar circumstances) to have that knee-jerk reaction, especially when they have been traumatized by violence in their past. What matters is not what kinds of fears we have–we really cannot control that–but how we respond to those fears. I try to act in spite of my various fears whenever possible. I hope nobody is offended that I feel such fear, though; I don’t think it says anything about other people. I find it healthier to acknowledge such fear so that it’s easier to get past it, rather than trying to suppress it, which doesn’t seem to work.
I definitely didn’t mean any offense with my comment. I agree with almost everything the author said in this article. I just have a question about that one item, since apparently my opinion about this differs. In no way did I intend to accuse the author of “lacking empathy” for women; indeed, it is precisely because I assume he DOES have such empathy that I thought he might be persuaded, there is no problem with women having fear of strange men in the elevator. We all know what it’s like to have our choices take away by someone; there is really no need for us to attack each other, right? Let’s assume we all have a basic good will.
Here is the thing Suzy. This isn’t about “the idea that women might be wary of men in an elevator, or other situations where they can’t easily get away.” It was about the appropriate behavior of a) only men b) about ALL men, c) the reactions of ALL women, not just rape-survivors, and d) over a behavior that most men or women would do.
Here is what happened in “elevator-gate” for anyone reading this who doesn’t know what happened: Rebecca Watson was speaking at an atheist conference in Dublin, after which she had a few drinks with the rest of the speakers and conference goers at the hotel bar. At 4am she got in an elevator with a fan of hers from the audience. According to Watson: he told her “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?” She was uncomfortable and told him no. Nothing further was said, she went back to her hotel room, slept the night and nothing further happened between the two after she left the elevator. However she then flew back home and posted a video blog about the incident saying that she felt sexualized and uncomfortable and “Guys, don’t do that” To this point nothing other then the public discussion of a trivial encounter has happened, but then people began calling Watson’s outrage at being politely asked to go back to another room ridiculous, which arguably it was, but then one of her colleagues wrote an inappropriate satirical article/letter, opposing Watson’s comments, to a fake Muslim woman that satirically trivialized the sexualisation, including sexist laws and genital mutilation, Muslim women face by saying that the west features much worse things like “a gentleman on an elevator politely asking a woman back to his hotel room then acting courteously when she says no.” It was in extremely poor taste, but naturally the poor taste attracted worst, and soon the trolling began as the discussion quickly turned into feminists talking about how this man “without a doubt” intended to have sex with Mrs Watson and that all men are the same, that this discussion about a “non-rape victim” (Watson wasn’t even actively pursued) is somehow about rape victim and a lack of respect in society for women who have been raped, and that all women should never trust any man, that guys shouldn’t even talk to girls when sharing an elevator or a taxi with a stranger, etc. etc. As the “Mail&Guardian” put it “what could have been an intelligent debate about sexism in the skeptic and atheist communities descended into a free for all, name-calling brawl. ”
What James Landrath appears to be saying is as a victim he understands the actual psychological effects and scars that are generating these negative responses in rape-victims, as I am sure you do to, but that for him this is not a mentality that is healthy or should be promoted. In his next paragraph he talked about how guilty he feels when the now engrained responses comes forward.
I’m sure we would all agree that this negative reaction towards the gender of a persons rapist is a perfectly natural and entirely excusable reaction, but where I see his outrage is from his point of view that, however excusable the reaction is, it is not a GOOD reaction or the RIGHT reaction, and not one he consciously wants to have. One of the hardest things he has had to do as a result of his experience is to overcome the damage that this one woman did in his attitude towards other women. He empathizes with both women and men who have to overcome the same thing.
Then this controversy comes up with feminists telling people that women should treat all men as if they are potential rapists, and men should accept this behavior. That the behavior he knows to be destructive and negative is one that feminists, who may or may not themselves be rape victims, are advocating that the general population should take on. Not only is this the behavior that he is trying to suppress because he knows how harmful it is, but the feminists were actively trying to tell other women that this was the appropriate way to act. It was also such an inherently biased argument from the beginning towards women being victimized by men that it marginalized James and people like him.
You end your response with: “Let’s assume we all have a basic good will.” I couldn’t agree more. THIS is what James has been fighting to regain in himself, THIS is what James has been fighting for in society as well with this article, and THIS is what James was outraged about in the article. It was not about non-empathy with victims. It was about feminists who only were willing to extend this basic assumption of good will to women, and reverse it for men. THAT is what he was so outraged about in his article
Thank you Andrew K. I appreciate you speaking out. Having my words twisted or outright IGNORED in favor of imaginary words I never uttered is getting really OLD.
I appreciate it.
CJ, accusing someone of lacking empathy (as SEVERAL commenters here ALSO pointed out REPEATEDLY), is pretty rude, as were many of your prior postings that were deleted by the mods for abuse.
I need to check some of me email in boxes more often!
Suzy you say:
“I was puzzled by the comment about “a whole new level of offensive”, since I didn’t (and still don’t) see what was offensive about the idea that women might be wary of men in an elevator, or other situations where they can’t easily get away.”
Some credentials for me – male sexual abuse survivor, human rights advocate, I have worked with and for all persons who have suffered all forms of sexual violence and abuse – ignoring sex, gender, age, ethnicity … in fact any supposed minority characteristic that may get in the way of human rights – I’m out loud and proud as a G.A.Y. man, and I also just happen to be a Cripple who kicks ass on crutches when Disability Equality issues arise…. which happens to be far too often!
Is it offensive that it promoted that men have to consider all women as potential rape victims – and yet the same is not true by reverse?
Is it offensive that men who are innocent of any wrong doing have to self stigmatise to appease some people’s world views, agendas and propagandising of a single event?
Many people are not puzzled by “a whole new level of offensive” – it was how the Subject and ONE case was being deliberately Exploited that was offensive! It remains offensive! It was abusive to women, men, all people who have had to deal with Sexual Violence in all forms – and then I discovered the Icing On The Cake.
I have to say – I find that exploitation even more offensive now – as it has been pointed out the Woman in question is also Disabled with a Nerodiverse condition, “Prosopagnosia” – a cognitive impairment which means she is unable to recognise or recall faces.
So she was not creeped out because of rape – she was creeped out because she was unable to recognise the person and remember when and how she had spoken to him. The lady concerned makes it clear that it was no stranger issue as some have attempted to make it all about!
So from where I’m sitting it has not just been the exploitation of one case in an attempt to impose a global view of how men should view women, with no commensurate balance – It has been exploiting Disability and degrading the experience that Disabled People have.
I find exploitation of any kind offensive, and when it’s cynical exploitation, I apply an inverse cube law – and when that happens, I can assure you that James has been mild in his criticism and comments.
I wonder how the scenario of elevator gate would play out if I was the man?
Me: Hey like your ideas – can we chat more?
Her: I have lectured today on the objectification of women, I am offended – leave the lift at once.
Me: Sorry there – I need it more than you do, you can use the stairs, so you get out and get over yourself!
Her: I’m disabled too, your behaviour is not only sexist but abelist – and I still fear you will rape me!
Me: Ha – Disabled and Queer – sorry you don’t Float My Boat and it’s rather rude to assume that all men are straight – how Heteronormative and anti diversity can you get – any more Jokers to play?
Her: You don’t understand rape and rape culture!
Me: Whoops that’s your Last Joker played – been there – been the victim, work with victims so they can become survivors – … and I’ve changed my mind, you may have had some valid points earlier – but as a sceptic you just failed! So I’m on floor three and I’m pushing the button now. Which floor are you on – or will you wait for the next lift?
Offensive is relative – and people do need to have all the facts to make judgement! P^)
I own my own issues and don’t impose them upon others – and if people attempt to use me as a whipping boy for their agendas, I take no prisoners. What a Pity Rebecca “Skepchick” Watson was happy to collude – “a whole new level of offensive” indeed”.
Suzy – It also has strong links to Rape Denial and Rape Apologia – If a male dismisses, or discounts in any way, a female’s experience of Rape all hell breaks out.
But – If a male says he has been raped by a women the responses are to Trivialise the experience by Numerical/Quantitative Argument – Qualitative Argument – and basically deny the effect.
By the definitions used by Feminist writers on the subject of rape, that is rape denial and rape apologia – and it highlights a grave double standard and gross sexism. There is a lot of history around the subject.
As I wrote in another comment:
“Tell us what to do so that we don’t annoy you—and give us the qualitative barrier that even one man has to exceed so that he is not a number but a Human Being!”
I have seen the dynamics play out before in the history of HIV – AIDS – and I deliberately used a real world example, which you can see here, from the film “And The Bad Played On”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vJa1LnSEY
But – If a male says he has been raped by a women the responses are to Trivialise the experience by Numerical/Quantitative Argument – Qualitative Argument – and basically deny the effect.
Yeah I remember that. A post here recently that boiled down to. “I’m not trying minimize male sexual assault victims. I’m just saying that if you look at the Quantitative Differences you’ll see that women have it worse.”
Suzy I saw it the same way. I believe that the sentence and paragraph does not accurately portray the meaning. Just clearly what the offense is is not clear except by surmise. And James I hope perhaps you might look at the comments about that sentence to find a way to perhaps expound or expand on what is offensive. Cause for sure you are not offended that women have talked about suffering pstd but something else. Yet the sentence or paragraph doesn’t say that. That’s all that Suzy is indicating.
I think that as human all day we are giving off signs that indicate who we are and what sort of person we are. Perhaps the issue here is that as a male victim one might particularly want to give off a protective vibe and yet if some female victims are saying they want men to act submissive around them well that’s kinda messed up. Especially when the female perpetrator demanded submission. No body should be demanding submission from another.
No CJ, her post was not written with politeness and curiosity. She clearly accused me of lacking empathy for female rape survivors. The fact that she phrased in the form of a question really did little to change the meaning.
You may agree with her, and that is fine, but don’t mischaracterize me or my response simply because you agree with Suzy. You are now doing the same thing that she accused me of doing, lacking empathy.
A woman came onto a thread about men raped by women and then accused a man who was raped by a woman of lacking empathy for women. You have admitted you were ignorant of the facts, yet still support the claim that I lack empathy. Can you see just how offensive that is in that context?
Would you have supported a man saying such a thing to a female rape survivor who had been raped by a man?
I doubt it.
I’m actually really grateful to hear this perspective because, it reminds me to look past the obvious features we all have on the outside, into the full human life beneath that we all have in common. That men could suffer fear from women is something I had not heard a single man testify to himself although I had imagined it was possible, but to hear it in your own words is of course very powerful and I’m grateful. I have heard many rape stories from women in college as part of my gender studies and that is really not fair actually, in retrospect. Statistics should not be used to justify treating any group of people a certain way, and stories like yours really help break down the barriers that we throw up in order to categorize people and justify brittle behavior. Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you, Rose, for reminding us that we are all human beings underneath. Just as we love each other as men and women, we also fear each other–in different ways, to be sure–but the fear is fully human. In fact, most psychologists of masculinity have a great deal to say about how men fear women at a deep level. We just don’t acknowledge it readily in large part because we think it is unmanly to express fear, especially fear of the feminine. Anyone wanting to explore this further will find Terry Real’s “I Just Don’t Want to Talk About It” a powerful read. And David Gilmore’s “Misogyny” is a comprehensive and sometimes lurid description of how men’s fear of women plays out as violence against them across cultures and down through history. Our fear of women does not justify our violence in any way, but recognizing it is a first step toward addressing it.
Interesting how we pathologize men’s fear of women and rationalize women’s fear of men.
Men have no real right to fear women, but women have every right to fear men.
“And David Gilmore’s “Misogyny” is a comprehensive and sometimes lurid description of how men’s fear of women plays out as violence against them across cultures and down through history. Our fear of women does not justify our violence in any way, but recognizing it is a first step toward addressing it.”
I’m curious how your comment relates to the OP being raped by a woman and subsequently developing a fear of them. Is his fear really do to deepset aversion to the abstract ‘feminine’?
This would be a bizarre comment, IMHO, except that I think I know where it’s coming from. Here we see a story about a man being acted upon by a woman in a very negative way and developing a fear response.
This comment illegitimizes the man’s fear-response to a woman’s actions and recasts women in the role of victim and acted-upon. (The real problem is how men’s illegitimate fear of women causes them to commit violence against women.)
Men Act, women are acted upon.
Hey typhon. . .. I have to say that as a woman, I’ve done a lot of “actions” in my life. . . including being a top athlete in the country in college (12th at national level). I grew up in an all girl – very tomboyish family. I think what you are talking about, is not about actual biological males and females of the world (otherwise we’d have much more pronounced sexual dimorphism!), but the memes, or stories or masks we are expected to play out in order to be accepted in society.
So it would really be more proper to put your broad statement “men act and women are acted upon” in its proper context (i.e. in the majority of american popular myth) otherwise it is at the least intentionally inflammatory, at the most ignorantly sexist. It is and can only be true from a socio-linguisitc standpoint, and actually could be considered a very ethno-centric statement. If for example, I belonged to a matriarchal culture (there are a few, yes, remaining in this world- and even then, some of the nomadic peoples like tibetans are patriarchal but environmental factors alter the distribution of labor to make it about equal and their representations of the female divine are actually vividly, incredibly, ACTIVE. . look up “dakinis” or “tara” or “sky-goddesses”) These days there are puritanical vestiges in american culture which still dominate our subconscious programming here in the west, but that is a western and a recent meme in human history. . . . Oh yeah, and lets not forget, what little we know of so many other cultures out there, and how the women and men themselves individually, identify themselves to themselves and others. . . .sorry . .. too many anthropological classes in school, plus I practice esoteric buddhism with an emphasis on the active dakinis. . . so fyi . . do more reading. . .
I’d respond, but I really don’t see the relevance in your response to what I wrote.
I identified a dynamic I recognized in Larry’s comment. That’s all.
I agree with you that there is a cultural subtext casting men as actors, women as acted upon. It is pretty culturally universal in the public sphere. In the private sphere, it may be quite different, though. Some men learn all too well from their mothers at an early age how terrifying women can be and may carry that into adulthood. They have every “right” to fear the feminine. If they are then hurt or attacked by a woman, that fear is confirmed or intensified.
My comment about men’s failure (or refusal) to express that fear is not to pathologize it but simply to observe that this is part of the emotional armor that our culture presents us with. Our job in growing up is to recognize it and turn the armor to inner strength.
Hey Larry, I’m sorry you still have to put up with knee-jerk reactions like that. I don’t know how to describe it or defend it, only that generalizing like that is not helpful and is embarrassing for me to see come from my side, as a woman and a feminist. My kudos to you for being patient with it, but I think it was more of the drop a bomb and run style. You shouldn’t have to defend yourself from that. Its why I brought my shot-gun full to bear on ridiculous spin statements like that which are so last years feminist book store poetry jam. : D
Thanks, Rose. As a 71-year-old white male college professor, this format is new to me. I don’t mean to be a techno-curmudgeon, but I prefer the more civil face-to-face conversation where we know who is saying what to whom and generally have to do so with due regard to the feelings of the other since they are only feet away from us instead of infinite cyber-miles. This technology lends itself to a certain coarseness, I’m afraid.
In any case, it is clear that you have thought a lot about these issues and if you have a chance to glance at those books you’ll find Real’s a rare view of men’s pain, and Gilmore’s a complex and fascinating (if somewhat discouraging) view of how my sex has all too often chosen to deal with it.
Civil face to face should be the ideal, in my mind. But now we have the internet and that allows for that coarseness as you mention, the “drive by comment” as I think of them. It’s easy to be cruel when one is anonymous. Thank you for your piece here. I appreciated reading it.
Oh and lastly typhon, don’t know your rep here on this blog, but I think the larry guy was responding to my post mostly, as a friendly thing, and if you re-read it rather, or re-read it as I did (the always skeptical) I would see that he’s not being anti-feminist or sexist or apologetic at all simply stating some interesting knowledge. Your reply however, contains much more in it that could be contrived as generalizing. . . which if you know what that is. . . is not that helpful. Like I said before, you should consider that other people lives whether male or female are much richer and deeper than you think, and their cultures, concepts, fantasies and myths might be much richer and deeper than you project as well.
I’m responding because I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a ‘drive by commentator.’
However, I have nothing substantive to say to your comment aside from noting that I think you’re arguing with something that isn’t there.
“I would see that he’s not being anti-feminist or sexist”
Stop conflating these concepts. Being against feminism is not related to being sexist. Period.
Agreed. I think one can be very against this new brand of feminism because it is the feminism itself that has become sexist. The origin of feminism comes from wanting to be on equal footing; not from wanting to turn into our oppressors and rule ourselves more important than men, our sufferings more important than theirs etc. It was about fighting sexism.
I am a feminist/human activist but I am against a large branch of feminism.
That’s a problem some of them have. They depend on conflations like that to protect themselves from criticism.
Another one to look out for is the trying to make anything that could be seen as equality with feminism. That way if you disagree with a feminist on something suddenly you are against equality.
Thanks a lot for your recommends. I will check them out for sure!
Thank you Rose, for understanding and responding with compassion.
Thanks so much for sharing and for your courage. I am sorry you had that experience and the years of your life you have lost. I know that healing from trauma is possible and there are amazing interventions that help. I hope you find that works for you – you deserve to have a life free from the pain of being violated and victimized by someone else. Again, thank you for your courage in speaking your experience.
Thank you so much James for sharing your story. I hope it inspires other men to be more open about their experiences with rape and sexual assault. I am disgusted by what that woman did to you and I am so sorry that society’s gender expectations forced you to bury the pain for so many years. I am a survivor of physical abuse and this has given me the privilege to meet and befriend many people who have survived similar traumas. Several of my women friends are survivors of rape. But one friend in particular sticks out in my mind. Like you, she was raped by a woman in high school (a horrifying situation of a child raping a child). Instead of relying on physical strength to threaten and intimidate, this girl used emotional manipulation to force my friend into submission, just as your rapist did with you. She also threatened to accuse my friend of rape. The problem is that we can’t let go of the stereotypes of who rapes and who gets raped. If we were asked what a rapist looked like, I’m sure that no one would say a pregnant woman, and yet it happens in real life. A 15 year old girl raping a 16 year old girl- just as unlikely. We silence victims with these stereotypes because we make them think that no one will believe them. I am sorry that this happened to you. It is difficult for any survivor of rape to get justice in this country, but it must be even harder when the victim is an adult male. Both society and the law need to catch up with real life.
P.S. Panic disorder sucks. I wish you speedy healing.
Thanks Christina, I appreciate your compassion and willingness to discuss your own experiences with abuse. Our stories help so many others than we can truly know. Somewhere, someone is sitting in silence and feeling more validated after reading your comments.
Thank you.
You are so brave! Thank you for speaking out.
Thank you for sharing this story. So important for advocacy to put a face to the experience and the reality that men can be victims, too.
So sorry this had to happen to you, but thank you for being a part of trying to find a way to stop sexual abuse and rape for all.
Thank you Joanna, I greatly appreciate it.
How did I get PTSD when I’ve never been in the military?
By James W. Love, M.Ed.
Until my marriage crumbled in the close of the eighties I had very little knowledge of the psychology of spouse abuse. That is often the case with the abused even educated ones like me. Yes, I am a male spouse abuse victim or I was for twelve years. This may seem strange since I am extremely well read. As soon as I started reading in the first and second grades my Mother; who only had been allowed to attend the third grade of public school, always found money for books. Being mountain folk we were quite industrious. So, in addition to my Dad working in the local paper mill also we ran a reupholstery business and had about an acre and a half of garden plus a Burley tobacco crop. So, a few dollars here and there was not a problem especially since I was an only child.
During high school I was homosexually seduced by someone I thought of as a brother. It profoundly changed my life. It was the sixties and gay was worse than being black in a small Southern Appalachian town. So I was never allowed to date. I don’t mean that my parents wouldn’t let me date; the entire town wouldn’t let me date. So a few years later when I entered college everyone that knew me was amazed. Because I didn’t just date I would often take two and three girls on a date at the same time. The little college town that was near the college had nothing in the way of entertainment. Two restaurants, a one screen movie house, and a liquor store. Of course, there were a number of gas stations but they didn’t count when it came to dating.
My favorite place to hangout happened to be the Baptist Student Union because it was easy to make friends with all the girls there. Of the eighty or so students around half were female. So my friends from my high school that were also attending the same college were shocked when I went down the street with three beautiful young things in my car. Getting the dates was simple. My parents’ house was about twenty to thirty minutes from a fair sized city that had two duplex theatres, an adult theatre, bunches of restaurants and a new mall! For 1971 it was pretty tricked out. In addition my parents were the epitome of Southern Hospitality. So my undergraduate years were not lonely at all. But as I started my senior year I was uneasy about what came after school. Because I knew that after I finished my degree in Blind Rehabilitation that I’d be back out in the cold cruel world and that was really scary.
In my first semesters of grad school I didn’t have time to be lonely. In graduate school you learn to sweat blood. But I had the summers off. This allowed the professors to monitor second year students’ internships.
That summer while visiting friends and an old girlfriend at my alma mater I met my future wife. She was in a summer program for visually impaired students and her room was next to my old girlfriend. Since the incoming students in this program were encouraged to mingle with the old timers we saw a lot of each other. So I asked her out and it was lust at first sight. We had sex on our first date. Often after that I would show up on weekends and we would spend the whole weekend in bed. Actually even if it was the Swingin’ Seventies that wasn’t a good thing. We only had three real dates. So summer was a blur of lots of sex some chit chat and not much else.
When I returned to grad school I missed all of the lust and companionship. Of course I had given her my number. But since she was visually impaired we could also exchange boxes of cassette tapes and not have to pay postage. So I was soon spending hours and hours taping to her and on Saturdays I would spend a couple of hours on the phone. Looking back though I realize that all of this was feel good chit chat; I didn’t get to really know this hot little number that I was thinking about marrying. After all I was a psychology major and getting a masters, boy were those famous last words.
When I returned at Christmas I asked her to marry me. Twelve years later as I was being tossed out with the garbage I was informed that she had never really loved me; she was trying to get away from her insane father.
I would learn a couple of months after we married that over a number of years her father had developed into a paranoid schizophrenic with heavy layers of ritual behavior and delusions in her early adolescence.
During our marriage he was constantly being sent to the state mental hospitals and wound with a full mental disability check from DSS. After we separated I was to realize that my wife had been a victim of severe sexual abuse as a child and teenager. Unfortunately, she had been taught to be adamantly opposed to any type of therapy. For twelve years I tried constantly to get her to get therapy. To my knowledge she never has.
I think it’s ironic that she chose to be silent about all of these problems. Because if she had enough courage to come out about these issues right after we married our marriage could have been her happy ending. Instead I slowly descended into hell.
Understand that what I’m talking about is behavior that usually at normal levels being ramped up to extreme levels. It’s normal for couples to argue but it’s not normal for one of the people to still be going after the other one at 3 AM; and that was a regular part of my life.
When I started to work for the state of SC I was extremely lucky to get a job at the School for the Deaf and Blind. In fact by the second winter I had a house a mile from the school. Since my job involved constantly walking it was a short stroll away. But when the school year ended they had me to be itinerate; I had half the state for a territory! That summer I would put over 50,000 miles on my car. I would be between clients or waiting on the rehab teacher that I worked with and would walk around in a mall to get away from the 1050 heat that was blanketing the state. One time I saw some really cute china horses in a gift shop and they were only a dollar a piece. Knowing that my wife loved horses I got her three or four.
When I got home not only did I get yelled at for being late. It was around seven when I finished but for the next two weeks I was yelled at for rubbing it in that I got to drive all over the state and she couldn’t drive. I soon learned never to say anything about having to make long drives after a hard day’s work; that was my rubbing my being able to drive in her face.
When the job fell through in SC (because I had a co-worker that no one could work with) I was forced to leave Blind Rehab. She didn’t want me to be itinerating. I was offered a position with the Commonwealth of Virginia; they had three openings and they wanted to show them to me and let me take my pick but no I had to retrain and work in factories. For the next eight years I was working in hell. I loved working with people not in factories. By that time she had finally forced me to have a kid. I had been trying to avoid children because I didn’t want to expose them to her. But the demands about work didn’t stop there; she always had a DSS check because of being born with RP. So she would suddenly decide to go visit her mother, I had to call into work and take her. It might be for a weekend or it might be for several days. Thankfully she could only handle her mother for so long; the woman was a bitter person who constantly complained and was totally cold. Once my wife told me that she couldn‘t believe it when she started being around my parents. Because they were constantly telling each other that they loved each other and rarely even said a cross word.
Because of my having to lay out and frequent taking off to appease her I couldn’t even keep a job with temporary services. In 1988 I had to be listed with seven different agencies just to keep from starving. In fact, that winter things got so bad that I had to sell all of my books to get food. I had several dozen autographed copies of Science Fiction.
I hate to think of all of the good jobs I had to quit. Even if things were going great I would be expecting it to go to hell because it was going good. A number of times I was offered permanent jobs and promotions that I had to turn down because she didn’t want me to have any raises and such. Several times it also cost me the temp job! She didn’t care because we always had her DSS check and Foodstamps!
But the humiliation didn’t stop there. Early in our marriage my wife would act very suspicious and try to cover things up. Being a trained observer as an Orientation & Mobility Specialist and having a degree in psychology I knew that as early as two months after our wedding she was fooling around. While we were in Jackson, MS we went to the swimming pool several times so I had bought her a string bikini to ware. I enjoyed having other men stare at her; my trophy wife. She would often flirt with the janitors at the place where we were staying and “work on her tan” while I was at work doing my internship for graduate school. Later when we moved to South Carolina she would hang out with the neighbors in the apartment complex we were in. When I asked her about it she said that she was just smoking a joint with him and the guys. She was always complaining about the fact that my having to be careful about image. Smoke a joint; I couldn’t even go to a bar to have a beer and I bought our whiskey when we visited one of our parents since each was far away from the kids at the schools parents.
About nine months after we arrived we were in a house that we had bought and she confessed that she had been being a “slut” and having sex with the guy next door.
I told her that I had known just by the way that she was acting that it was very obvious. But it only excited me. I showed her some old men’s’ magazines with stories about men sharing their wives with other men that I had kept for years. Polyamory was not known to me then, but now I live by a simple philosophy I don’t put limits on love. During our marriage my wife introduce me to twelve of her lovers; who knows how many others there were. So yes the sex was incredible but because of how badly I was treated out of the bedroom it wasn’t worth.
Just before I was kicked to the curb I learned how little I meant to my wife. I was working a brutally hard job at a blanket factory. I was filling boxcars with forty pound boxes of blankets. We were only allowed a twenty minute break for lunch; so by the end of the day I was so tired I could barely drive home. I fell on the bed when I came into the house. My wife was on me pulling at my clothes. At first I thought that she was helping me to undress so I could sleep. But she kept saying that she had to have sex right then. I tried to push her off but she only laughed and started working to give me an erection. As soon as I was erect she mounted and got herself off. As she rolled off she laughed and said, “See I knew you’d enjoy it.” I dropped to the pillow thinking; “So that’s what rape feels like.”
A couple of months after that she told me to hit the door that I was totally worthless. Looking back it seems silly that I was shocked when the therapist informed me that I had PTSD.
Intellectually I had fully accepted that women could be sexual victimisers just as men could. I knew aggressive women, I knew aggressively sexual women, but until I read your very person encounter with this kind of behaviour somehow I hadn’t really believed it.
Thank you for sharing. More stories like this need to be told.
I’ve heard a similar sentiment from other before Peter. Usually, at least a few people will approach me after a presentation on a campus or church to remark that they never really realized how it could affect a man.
It will take more time to get our stories (male survivors and female survivors of female predators) included in the greater narrative of sexual violence. The more of us who speak out, the faster that will occur.
James, thank you so much for your courage through your experience and sharing it with others. I know how difficult it is to go through rape as I have been in similar shoes in my life. Whether it is from a man or woman, it is absolutely unacceptable and wrong. Each day, I believe we are healing little by little, and learning to love ourselves even more for what we went through. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like a victim, but people like you give me strength to be a survivor.
Like a Lie Detector Test (Polygraph Test), there is an urgent need to develop “brain monitoring” techniques which are currently at an experimental stage. Once such a procedure is perfected, and implemented as a judicial tool, it should expose MANY people and relieve all those who have been falsely accused of crimes, not just related to sexual abuse/assault/violence, but overall.
Wow, thank you for sharing your story. I actually held my breath during the second part of it and felt panicked.
It is one thing to understand that rape is something that can occur to men and should be treated the same way as female rape, but another to actually hear it from the perspective of a victim. This is an article I’ll share with my friends.
I loved this article and appreciate your courage to speak about your trauma. However I, like a few others here, was also thrown off by your reference to “elevator gate.” (I was also surprised that you responded so angrily, because her tone didn’t strike me as impolite in the least) like her, I found myself thinking “why doesn’t he understand where those women are coming from when he himself feels the exact same way?” if you were to avoid me in an elevator or an empty parking lot, I wouldn’t get angry with you in the least because I know what it’s like to be triggered back to a traumatic memory. Something doesn’t really add up here…
Cathy,
Thank you for taking the time to write. As I have explained repeatedly along with many others, the elevator-gate reference is not AT ALL how you portrayed it. I am not talking about REAL PEOPLE WITH REAL FEARS, but the ridiculous hypothetical argument made by some extremists that all men SHOULD be treated like rapist because SOME are rapists. Once again, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT REAL PEOPLE WITH REAL FEARS. Okay?
Really. I’ve explained this REPEATEDLY. Suzy, and one troll who found many of his abusive and off-topic posts deleted, refused to even NOTICE that and kept going back in time to pretend it means something else entirely. Several other commenters have also called that out, to include some female survivors as well.
I’m done with people misrepresenting my words for their own purposes.
James,
It was perfectly clear the first time you wrote it. Anyone who does not understand is either severely linguistically challenged, or most likely just not putting in the appropriate effort to understand perceptions beyond their own point of view. Thank-you for writing. All of this.
sincerely,
-Adam
By the way, this article has been linked to and quoted by Andrew Sullivan on two separate occasions:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/01/when-women-rape-men.html
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/04/how-many-women-rape-men.html
Hopefully, that will help change a few minds with regard to male survivors, victim-blaming and the healing process.
I’m very saddened by this story but also hoping that your story will help others to come forward. I myself understand what you’ve been through and burying it etc …..so I’m proud whenever survivors can come forward and speak out.