One of the problems is the inadequacy of the word rape. I prefer the definition given by Wikipedia below because it very graphically describes the act.
“Until 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considered rape a crime solely committed by men against women. In 2012, they changed their definition from “The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will” to “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” The previous definition, which had remained unchanged since 1927, was considered outdated and narrow. The updated definition includes recognizing any gender of victim and perpetrator and that rape with an object can be as traumatic as penile/vaginal rape. The bureau further describes instances when the victim is unable to give consent because of mental or physical incapacity. It recognizes that a victim can be incapacitated by drugs and alcohol and unable to give valid consent. The definition does not change federal or state criminal codes or impact charging and prosecution on the federal, state or local level; it rather means that rape will be more accurately reported nationwide.”
Had I been the journalist reporting this story I would have written something like this. However I’m more of a novelist. and it’s my job to imagine and graphically describe to my readers the pain we humans go through, and continuously inflict on each other.
“The victim was forcibly pinned against the wall while the perpetrator unzipped his pants and shoved his erect penis into her vagina, all the whie holding his hand over her mouth so she could not scream. As he did this he ripped aside her underwear with his left hand.
During the attack, the victim was unable to breath and could not fully believe or understand that a man she knew and respected, was carrying out this humiliating and violent act upon her body. Once he had finished and within two seconds after ejaculating, he removed the hand that was holding aside her underwear, and withdrew his limp penis from her body, casually putting it back into his pants and zipping them up.
After he had roughly released her by pushing her back against the cubicle wall once more, he turned away, pulling aside the curtain covering the entrance, and gave her a brief look saying softly, “just try and prove I did this to you.”
After the perpetrator left, the victim wept silently, unwilling tears falling from her eyes onto her hands. At the same time a million thoughts went spinning through her head as she realized her vagina burned unbearably, and she could no longer stand because her legs were shaking uncontrollably. She was angry and scared both at the same time, and she hoped she was not pregnant.
Finally, brushing aside her tears and trying not to sob loudly so that some others who had just come into the adjoining dressing rooms would hear, she continued to sit with her back pressed against the wall where she had fallen.
The firmness of the partition which supported her, allowed her to center herself and accept the reality that she could not go to the police and report the assault; she did not have the strength or resources to stand up in court against this rich, famous man, their mutual colleagues and his network of allies.
After waiting a good fifteen minutes in order to collect herself sufficiently, she was finally able to leave the store, and instead of going to the police went over to her best friend’s apartment, and told her what had happened. Together they decided that as she had at first thought, she had no chance of defeating him in the court of public opinion nor in a court of law. That in fact if she tried her career would be over.
Twenty three years later, this victim watched stunned as the man who had violently assaulted her so many years before, was elected to the highest office in the land.
However since the time of her assault something important had changed in the court of public opinion. In the interim time, women and men had started for the first time to come out of the woodwork, and talk publicly about the sexual assaults that had been perpetrated against them for years.
They had started a movement called “Me Too”. This movement had spread around the world, and for the first time in her life our victim felt empowered to tell others about what had happened to her. In addition, part of her reason for speaking out was that so many other women had also claimed that this same man had forced his hands, mouth and other parts of himself on their unwilling bodies.
It was by making public what had happened to her that she was finally able to release the crippling blame and shame she had been carrying around since the rape had happened.
Because of the courageous acts of so many women and men in fact, a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. An ugly, destructive secret that had been carefully hidden, and which had gone unacknowledged publicly for so long within the constructs of the race to which she belonged, the human one, was finally revealed.
This secret was that attitudes of male sexual entitlement, beliefs in family honor and sexual purity, and the weak legal sanctions towards sexual violence were destroying and had destroyed the lives of countless women and children (male and female) for thousands of years.
By speaking out about her violent assault, this victim and the many others like her, made the first critical steps in a very long process that would finally fully expose this kind of entitled, patriarchal behavior.
What she did not know however when she spoke out, is whether or not he and all the others like him could be proven guilty and thus held fully accountable.
Eventually what she did understood is that it would take the moral fortitude of all of us to fully address this heinous crime against humanity.”
