Flashback Article: Rape, from Synapse 1982
by Jennifer BrettI was originally going to write this paper on how many women are raped and then don't do anything about it because of humiliation or because they know the courts make it very hard to prove anything. But when I started to talk to people I know in LRY [Liberal Religious Youth] about it, two things came into light: first, that quite a number of us had been raped by people outside of LRY; and second, that even more of us have been raped within LRY, but have not thought of it as such. It seems that someone will, say, be giving someone else a massage, and that massage will get more and more intense until suddenly the person receiving the massage will find his/herself in a sexual situation. The person giving the massage simply assumed that when the other person said s/he would love a massage, they meant they would like to go to bed with him/her. (How "massage" equals "sex" is something I still don't understand.) One of two things usually happens next: either the one receiving the massage will excuse him/herself from the situation (possibly by falling asleep—the ultimate putdown), or s/he will give in to the peer pressure and the LRY stigma and let it ride. When I've asked these people why, they usually reply that they felt miserable in the situation, but they would have felt like a real ass if they said no.
Another type of rape that occurs in LRY is when a former lover thinks everything is still "peaches and cream." Sometimes s/he will begin stripping his/her former partner without even considering that anything new might have come up. The situation gets really bad when the one was sleeping by him/herself and still cares for the first.
So what is it that makes this type of rape so permissible? Is it something to do with LRY? Or does it have to do with society as a whole? I think it is some of both. The "sexual revolution" has changed the way society looks at sex. I, myself, used to think I had to have a good sexual experience to prove I loved somebody. And I've found others who think that way. But LRY's community spirit, the giving and wanting and needing and finding have amplified this attitude. When some people say they want a massage, they do mean they want to go to bed with you. It is one of those handy LRY come-ons. (You know, like "I forgot to bring my sleeping bag, can I share yours?") I think it's about time we understand that rape has become a part of LRY, and an accepted part as well. And it's also time we do something about it. I don't have any quick solutions. Maybe if people began to talk to each other about what they think instead of telling tall stories about irrelevant things, many of the problems we have might evaporate.
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Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
