On Rape and Stories and the Weight of Glory
I think the tongue is the worst part. 
In those moments, a million details are falling rapidly through your mind from and to every direction: your own anger that he thinks this this is okay… that first strike of panic that he’s not stopping this time… the white hot stab from his grip that hurts… fear, realizing he’s in a trance and deaf to your yells… thudding shock of awareness that you’re completely alone and not only does he somehow not hear you, but no one else can either…sickening vulnerability at how easy it is for his grip to move your body from sitting and struggling to flat on your back, pinned… not to mention that every single color your eyes pick up is so much brighter than it’s ever been before, each vying for attention
A million details… the brain is grasping frantically for a place to latch, one thing to stop the world from spinning, a focal point that will blur out everything else…
So your brain finds the tongue. No, not yours… his. Large, sloppy, so wet… pushing against first your tightly sealed lips, making it far enough to gloatingly drag across your teeth before sliding over your jawline, to your much more vulnerable neck, joined there by teeth, leaving a trail of bruises. In those moments, you’re only mildly aware of his increasing panting, his hands locking you in place, body pressing yours harder into the ground, mouth free to roam and mark like a dog on the street… it’s the tongue your brain has chosen, so it’s the tongue that stays most clearly in the memories, leaving its thick layer of sloppy spit and smugness to stain all the places that used to be safe. And now his body is shifting and his hand is moving and your mind is fixated on the tongue and blocking everything else out…
I got away.
I’ve still no recollection of how I managed to get free, of what it took to peel that glazed stare from his eyes, of whether we fought before we left or just sat in silence for the trip back, no idea whether he even remembers. In many ways, I shut down that night, and it’s taken years to slowly learn to engage again. And this when I was an adult, when I knew the therapy roads for processing through assault in a non-self destructive way…
My question, then: What about the others?
Those who have experienced an assault on their bodies, innocence and trust (current estimates in America are at one in six women experiencing rape or attempted rape in their lifetime (1 in 4 during the college aged years))… and those for whom this isn’t a one-time story, but a lifestyle that threatens to permanently steal all hope.
The ones who are trafficked and sold…
the kids– to pay a familial debt or under the guise of an educational opportunity…
the older ones– lured in by some cunning would-be suitor, seduced by lies of “employment opportunities” or by some clever chance to take classes in an exotic place, or by a once-in-a-lifetime shot at the modeling they’ve always wanted to do…
Theirs are not stories about one night… theirs are stories of months and years, drugged and raped five, six, twenty times in a day while somebody else reaps financial gain for it. Theirs are stories of blinding pain and numbness on a level I can’t fathom, of learning to disconnect their minds from the reality of what’s happening to their bodies, of being caught planning to run away and then beaten as an example to the rest.
Sex is much more than the temporary fusion of body parts… and when the choice to lovingly give sexual intimacy is stolen or ripped from a person, the hurricane of emotions that results is often not easy to voice. There are so many stories that don’t get told…
It’s so easy to lose the horror of what’s happening because what we see are the numbers– which are deeply disturbing, but not nearly as overwhelming as the stories.
It’s so easy to lose the horror of what’s happening because what we see are the numbers– which are deeply disturbing, but not nearly as overwhelming as the stories.
If you’re still reading, chances are you were drawn to these words because they tell a story. We’re drawn to stories… sometimes like gawkers to an accident… sometimes because we really feel and understand what it means that the storyteller is beautiful and created in the image of God and carrying around with him or her the Weight of Glory… And we sit and we listen; we pull up the chair and a cup of coffee to be present and share life for a while.
And so I want to share some stories… some from my life, some from the lives of my friends, some from the lives of those we’ve met. And I invite you to sit with us, warm cup of coffee in hand, ready to listen and nod and absorb the story… Not to do or fix or solve… just to listen. And to affirm. And to appreciate the pain that has made the beauty. And to mourn with the storyteller in those places that are still so dark.
Our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind)
which exists between people who have, from the outset,
taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
And our charity must be a real and costly love…*
taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
This will be a place for us to sit with the conviction that there are no ordinary people… no mere mortals. to remind us to read and ponder and to live and listen and to appreciate and really hear the stories of the people in our worlds today, with all of the seriousness and all of the merriment that appreciates all of the beauty of being God’s creation made in His Very Own Image.
*I don’t know how to give you Clive without doing a disservice, because the beauty of reading his work is in understanding and knowing the whole of it… but here is just a taste of my favorite piece, The Weight of Glory. It makes for perfect reading.
