in response to video of Donald Trump and Billy Bush boasting about their routine violation of women.
I
am a survivor of sexual assault. LET ME SPEAK.
The
rape culture in which we now live is clearly evidenced by this
article and today's Facebook commentaries that defend Trump by soooo many men,
even women. LET ME SPEAK.
The rape culture began for me in Grade 8 in a
science class at Slauson Jr. High in Ann Arbor, MI, 1968. A slip of a student teacher ironically wearing go-go boots told us we're responsible for exciting the boys in the class--and that it was up to us to hold them back lest they get to a breaking point. to the point they
wouldn't be able to hold back their
arousal. Here's me: skinny, shy, unseated by danger. I cast a quick glance
around. Was I at their mercy? Their arousal somehow my fault? And how was I supposed to know what would set
them off?
Was I expected to accept as fate any boy's violence against me?
I
did something I NEVER did in class. I raised my hand and I asked a question.
Fear overcame my shyness.
An
inarticulate question, to be sure. I had no words. My teacher did not give me
words. I had only this helpless angst. I tried: "Are you saying boys
HAVE to hurt girls? They can't just go
squirt their stuff into a toilet? It HAS to be IN a girl?"
"No, but it's not what they want. It's not
fair to put them in that position."
LET
ME SPEAK.
She
did not tell me that putting it IN a girl without consent is illegal. She did not put the law on my side.
She just said I'd be "unfair" to the poor, suffering boy, overwhelmed
by his uncontrollable urges--and only God could know what THOSE urges might be.
WAS
DONALD TRUMP IN MY CLASS?
Was
Billy Bush one of the sniggering boys?
LET
ME SPEAK.
So
is it any wonder, then, that at 17, when a doctor tells me to take off all my
clothes, no gown, and then spends an
HOUR--one HOUR--doing everything short of penile penetration?
My
mother in the waiting room was frantic. I could hardly walk to the car. I was
nauseous, faint, trembling, sore. I had no reason to believe that my vicious
violation was illegal. Only that somehow I had been "unfair" to Dr. Don
Mattson. I understood that I was to accept in silence this fate. My mother wanted to know what was wrong with me. What was I to tell
her? My teacher's voice of four years before that fateful day of November 11,
1969, clanged in my ears.
LET
ME SPEAK.
A
year and a half ago I had a double mastectomy. I have massive scarring on my
chest. And every morning when I wake up, and I move, and I stretch, and I pull
back the covers, the tearing and tugging I experience puts me right back in
that doctor's office 47 years ago next month. Can you understand the terrible
pain that any mastectomy brings? Beyond the physical? Add to the molestation so
horrifying I had to bite my lips and go somewhere deep inside my head in order to
endure. In order to survive. And now, my chest scarred and tearing, I have feel that doctor's hands tearing and tugging my body
every day--for the rest of my life?
LET
ME SPEAK.
Donald
Trump is not a man for presidency of even the local Elks Club. He is of the
rape culture that continues to blame women and exonerate the boys who can't
help themselves.
I
have spent some of my day weeping for that girl forever lost. I emerged,
though, to find myself enraged, ENRAGED, that THIS is STILL going on!
In
the US presidential election.
LISTEN TO ME! And LET ME SPEAK!
"Stop
the madness!"
